TRAVELING ALL OVER THE PLACE

I have been very busy behind the steering wheel in March which accounts for why so few blogs. I have been in the office seldom. The rains continue in Samburu and much of Kenya so the roads are really getting to be a mess. I have been at Arsim 3 days now after my last travel and my body still aches from all the bumps. Pray for my left knee as it is still sore from clutching every 30 to 60 seconds for hours at a time, as my left leg is used for clutching and the right for brakes or accelerating. I made 3 trips to Maralal in 8 days for several meetings and picking up staff who have been out. We are chasing after some government funding (HSSF) in Maralal and Marsabit to help our health work. Pray for these efforts to succeed. Praise the Lord for a couple of people who donated to our Maternity Ward needs. So far I have gotten a table and 2 chairs for the nurse's office there, as well as some required buckets for various waste. We also have painted the windows in the delivery room as the doctor in charge of Samburu District asked us to do. He said curtains were not adequate for privacy! Now when I go to Nairobi for Easter I will buy a few other things we were needing to get to stock the ward. Pray for the promised government CDF (Constituency Development Funds) in Maralal to be released soon to help us install the solar system and water pipes and system in the Maternity Ward. It has been challenging to deliver babies without lights or water close by. Another trip took me to Korr to look for signatures of people. I also needed some signatures in Namarei and Ngurunit. I tried to take the shortcut from Korr to Namarei and found the river crossing impossibly deep with muddy sand. A lorry had gotten stuck there the day before and left a hole the size of my whole vehicle in the middle of the crossing. I sent someone on foot to try to cross and he sunk up to his ankles there and at other sites we used to cross at. So I had to turn back to Korr and then to Illaut and then over to Ngurunit and then to Namarei. Then back to Ngurunit, Illaut and finally home to Arsim. So a 4 hour trip took us 10 hours instead, due to one river we could not cross! I never got stuck anyplace, but you can see the challenges we face in travel in rainy season by this one example even if we don't get stuck in the mud. We are grateful to God for the green life all these rains have brought inspite of the challenges. The mass distribution of Zithromax in Samburu was cancelled until May due to the rainy conditions.